New TV consortium aims to simplify ad market

A number of the biggest TV operators have teamed up to make a concerted effort to simplify targeted advertising in the industry after complaints it has become both too fragmented and unwieldy. 

Comcast Corp, Charter Communications, Altice USA and Dish Media, plus smart TV manufacturer Vixio, are part of the eight-company consortium, Go Addressable, which is aimed at making addressable TV advertising more navigable.

The details

• Advertisers who once spent most of their advertising budgets on national and local TV are finding it harder to reach consumers who are increasingly switching to streaming services and digital media; a growing number of marketers is requesting TV partners offer options that target ads to bespoke audiences, much more like big digital platforms. 
• As digital ad opportunities grow, advertisers face having to piece together advertising space from a variety of streaming services, smart TV companies and cable operators, according to Larry Allen, vice-president and GM of addressable enablement at Comcast Advertising, part of Comcast.
• Go Addressable won’t be developing technology or systems to tackle the fragmentation problem, Allen says; instead, it will meet monthly to highlight problems, examine solutions and look for industry players who are in the best position to implement them. 
• One challenge it is looking to tackle is the elimination of jargon that will allow different targeted ad companies to speak in a consistent way about processes and products.

Key quote

“The buyers need a solution to their fragmentation problem. That’s a massive constraint on the market and the buyers that either bought individually or had to patchwork together or went through aggregators. Unlocking that scale across multiple endpoints is really the endgame” – Larry Allen, VP and GM of addressable enablement at Comcast Advertising.

Sourced from the Wall Street Journal